Everyone has to be rich now??

[jmattbassplaya]

Unfortunately, it is harder than previous generations had it, but it is still possible. Live on less than you make, invest in your 401(k), Roth IRA, etc., be smart about who you partner up with and how you spend your free time, be a quality employee who leaders want to promote, keep your housing costs as low as possible, and consider jumping to a new employer every 2-5yrs to capture a larger pay bump than the yearly merit increases will give you.

It’s a lot to navigate in addition to just the routine maintenance tasks you need to perform just to live life, but it is possible.

 

[Hoochie Coochie Man]

I have gotten to where I am today by always keeping in mind a philosophy about money that is:

If you spend half of your income on wine, women, and song it's, OK to spend the other half foolishly.

 

[VeryTallBassist]

I see the "toys", the McMansions, etc. and, let me tell you, some of these folks are in debt up to their eyeballs.

This is 100% accurate. The Instagram culture is real, where people want to appear wealthy because they think that actually makes them wealthy. It's a house of cards that will unfortunately not end well for most.

Remember that in the 70s and 80s, the homes families were living in were 1300 or 1500 square feet, not 5000 square feet. We didn't have these same levels of consumerism. Kids often wore hands me downs. Most cars didn't come with a quarter the level of luxury and convenience that the cheapest entry level vehicles come with today. Life was easier to afford because we didn't spend or "need" as much. My dad owned a music store and he never had a many basses as I do

 

[richntiff]

Unfortunately, it is harder than previous generations had it, but it is still possible. Live on less than you make, invest in your 401(k), Roth IRA, etc., be smart about who you partner up with and how you spend your free time, be a quality employee who leaders want to promote, keep your housing costs as low as possible, and consider jumping to a new employer every 2-5yrs to capture a larger pay bump than the yearly merit increases will give you.

It’s a lot to navigate in addition to just the routine maintenance tasks you need to perform just to live life, but it is possible.

You understand the privilege you enjoy simply being able to possess that viewpoint, right? Literally - if your take on how to get ahead includes the luxury of investing and jumping to a new employer every 2-5 years, you are already in very rarified air.

 

[Parzival]

and consider jumping to a new employer every 2-5yrs to capture a larger pay bump than the yearly merit increases will give you.

This. And it’s sad it has to be that way. I liked my last company, but if your raise is at or below the rate of inflation, that’s a pay cut and it is punitive to your employee.

But when you leave, they have to be competitive in the marketplace and will pay more for a new person. And I’m convinced I know why. It’s the HR mafia. This is job security and creates even larger departments of overpaid HR paper shufflers. Makes me sick.

 

[Old Blastard]

I worked in an industry for decades where I could chat with the bosses in the executive offices about the company's 3, 5, and 10 year plans to remain profitable and grow.

In the last 20 years, those plans disappeared. The company has focused on each quarterly report and maybe a year-long plan and it focuses on stocks and dividends and buybacks, not on profit and growth. It's about the activist investors, market harvesting and stock manipulations pretty much across the board, from IBM to Boeing.

It's a very different world from when I had hair and it was dark.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

i'd recommend honing your bass-playing skills. that way you get more gigs, better paying gigs. it's a win-win!

Excep “gig money” dollar wise is the same number it was in the 70’s

 

[humbuckaroo]

Turns out, free market competition requires guardrails against abuse and monopoly. Who'd have thought?

 

[JazznFunk]

You understand the privilege you enjoy simply being able to possess that viewpoint, right? Literally - if your take on how to get ahead includes the luxury of investing and jumping to a new employer every 2-5 years, you are already in very rarified air.

This, 100%. My parents spent the majority of their working years in the 80s and 90s, when corporate compensation was high, stock options were plentiful (and beneficial) and when we largely avoided the huge economic crashes we've seen in the last 25 years (except for maybe Black Monday and the Long Term Capital crises). The entire working landscape from the top down is different now, and anyone who started any sort of professional life (including me) since the start of the new millennium, has had to deal with a completely different landscape than most anyone did in the 80s and 90s. When we say it's different and far harder to make real financial progress.... believe it.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

The part I've never understood about French History is how they went from beheading the entire Monarchy and then allowing Napoleon to become Emperor a couple decades later. Sounds familiar somehow.

But he was a “common man” who kept the youth “employed “ and brought national pride back: we are taking over the world that Britain doesn’t control.
Played upon the basal need for conquest and dominance.

 

[gt96g]

Oh, this thread ain't gonna last long.

 

[BassBrass]

And I’m convinced I know why. It’s the HR mafia.

You are ignoring the generational transfer of Real wealth, to a degree never seen since Kings ruled countries, highly accelerated since 1980. (have you seen the latest budget?) Making a bunch of failed psychologists take the blame is similar to other lies being perpetuated these days. "Flood the zone" with lies...

But Someone is going to need A LOT of capital to build the survival silos so some of the human race stays around at 3- 5- 8 degree temp rise. And "we've" known about this since the mid 70s. What Survivalist billionaires are concerned with above all: how to keep their staff loyal.
Late Stage Capitalism is a perfect term. Like a disease process.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

I'd comment but I'm already on compulsory vacation from TGP for commenting on a similar thread

I wrote, and JUST NOW deleted a treatise.
I can enjoy freedom of speech everywhere except in a “closed environment “ like a DISCUSSION BOARD.

I get it though: this is about BEHS!
Not basic, pedestrian subjects like world history and economics.

That is for FecesBook and X…

 

[JazznFunk]

Unfortunately, it is harder than previous generations had it, but it is still possible. Live on less than you make, invest in your 401(k), Roth IRA, etc., be smart about who you partner up with and how you spend your free time, be a quality employee who leaders want to promote, keep your housing costs as low as possible, and consider jumping to a new employer every 2-5yrs to capture a larger pay bump than the yearly merit increases will give you.

It’s a lot to navigate in addition to just the routine maintenance tasks you need to perform just to live life, but it is possible.

What's amazing is that you think that all of that is still actually possible, regularly, month to month, for the majority of the (non-corporate?) working world. Not sure if you've seen wage vs rent/housing data lately, but it's almost impossible for low-to-middle wage earners to afford rent, much less health care, to say nothing about saving for retirement. Companies would rather hire part time/gig workers so they don't have to pay them benefits, while giving raises that in no way come close to compensating for cost of living and inflation. 'Living on less than you make' assumes that the rest of your expenses (housing, etc) are available in a form/market in your area that allows you to live below your means. Your observations, while well intentioned, are largely out of touch with reality for the majority of the average working world. Unfortunately, the affordable housing is outside of the areas which allow one to 'jump jobs every 2-5 years'. Lots of nuance is missed with this observation set.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

This, 100%. My parents spent the majority of their working years in the 80s and 90s, when corporate compensation was high, stock options were plentiful (and beneficial) and when we largely avoided the huge economic crashes we've seen in the last 25 years (except for maybe Black Monday and the Long Term Capital crises). The entire working landscape from the top down is different now, and anyone who started any sort of professional life (including me) since the start of the new millennium, has had to deal with a completely different landscape than most anyone did in the 80s and 90s. When we say it's different and far harder to make real financial progress.... believe it.

But in the 80s it was all about /\/\3 , blow and Nagel.
Sex without procreation or consequences

 

[friskinator]

The thing about housing that blows my mind is the size of the new houses being built. Not McMansions, but houses intended for middle class families. My wife and I watch House Hunters a lot, and whenever a couple is looking at a house built in the last century, the immediate reaction is "oh no, this is WAY too small." Families were fine with those houses back then. I grew up in a house like that. Now it seems that every middle class family requires 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, an office, a craft room, a game room, a guest room, and a 3 car garage.

 

[JazznFunk]

But in the 80s it was all about /\/\3 , blow and Nagel.
Sex without procreation or consequences

Maybe the 80s in New York, Miami, etc.... but not in Western NC. And I'm here, so there was procreation.

 

[JazznFunk]

The thing about housing that blows my mind is the size of the new houses being built. Not McMansions, but houses intended for middle class families. My wife and I watch House Hunters a lot, and whenever a couple is looking at a house built in the last century, the immediate reaction is "oh no, this is WAY too small." Families were fine with those houses back then. I grew up in a house like that. Now it seems that every middle class family requires 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, an office, a craft room, a game room, a guest room, and a 3 car garage.

The new construction my wife and I bought in 2015 is 1,500 SF. 3BR, 2 BA, attached garage. Just the 2 of us.... we don't have (can't have) kids. It was $225k. Those smaller starter homes WERE being built for a time. Now, builders don't have the incentives to do it... if they build them at all. We have a major housing crisis in our area because of this, compounded by the fact that a ton of housing stock is being used for AirBnBs, and/or got decimated by Helene. At this point, our 'starter home' will likely be our 'forever home'.

But yes, the same general mindset that got people in trouble in 2008 still persists - buying more house than they really need, spending more than they should. It only complicates matters though when even a small house like the one we have is now valued at over $500k. We could not afford the house we live in now if we were trying to buy it in this market, and that's the rub that no one seems to fix. The perfect, small, appropriately sized house is in many cases STILL outside of the reach of responsible, young, first time homeowners in many cases.

 

[groovaholic]

Look at graphs of wage growth vs. GDP growth - paying particular attention to the point on the graph where those metrics diverged.
The fiscal discrepancies in the US economy are unsustainable and were caused by very intentional policies.

Problem is that those policies benefit the rich donors, and those donors prop up the politicians who could actually change the policies.
So there's a whole lot of vested self-interest built into the status quo.

Change is unlikely until something awful happens - something that makes upsetting that status quo the far less appalling alternative.

 

[/\/\3phist0]

The thing about housing that blows my mind is the size of the new houses being built. Not McMansions, but houses intended for middle class families. My wife and I watch House Hunters a lot, and whenever a couple is looking at a house built in the last century, the immediate reaction is "oh no, this is WAY too small." Families were fine with those houses back then. I grew up in a house like that. Now it seems that every middle class family requires 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, an office, a craft room, a game room, a guest room, and a 3 car garage.

Aaand: that is a perpetuation of not KEEPING up with “the Jones’s” mentality of the previous half century:
Rather “winning”
And you are participating and SUPPORTING in the proliferation of the “influencer”
mindset.
Everyone “wins” right?




Tigers blood.